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11.6.12

Contested Games: Mexico 68’s Olympic design revolution

11 June 2012 - 14 July 2012

Venue: Art Exchange

1968:
a year of worldwide social unrest, upheaval and protest was also the
year of Olympic Games in Mexico. The first ‘nonwestern’ country ever to
host the Olympics, Lance Wyman’s landmark designs for Mexico 68 have
since entered the history books.Contested Games will examine how even at the time the Mexico
68 design did not go unnoticed by students protesting for change. Their
appropriation of the Olympic design is one of the most fascinating but
underexplored aspects of the Mexico 68 legacy.
By exploring both official and student design, this exhibition
reveals what is at stake when a country hosts the Olympics, and what
happens in the gap between the universal values that the Games
represents and the local realities faced in the host country.